


Electrostatic

by grayorca15, YearwalktheWorld



Series: Triverse [11]
Category: Castle Rock (TV), Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayorca15/pseuds/grayorca15, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YearwalktheWorld/pseuds/YearwalktheWorld
Summary: AU/Crossover. On-the-job hazards come in all kinds.Including sensory deprivation.





	Electrostatic

**Author's Note:**

> No. We don’t really know where this fits on the Triverse timeline as established. For now, assume it’s a little AU offshoot of our AU.
> 
> This relatively dated compared to our other works, and as yet we don’t have a second half. But we will. Just give it time.
> 
> Meanwhile...
> 
> #whocares

Nick hadn't ever really paused to consider what it would feel like to be deaf, or blind. Not when there were already so many other things to deal with, things that were already affecting him in ways they shouldn’t. No room leftover for considering hypothetical situations there. 

Maybe he should of thought on it, even just a bit. Because in reality, having it happen to him was the most terrifying experience he had ever gone through, all of the sudden having two of his three primary senses cut out. It wasn't like his hearing could compensate for his lack of vision, or vice versa, when both were gone.

He hadn't even really been involved in the operation anyways. They were supposed to be checking out the location of a suspected deviant -  _ they _ being himself, Connor, and Hank. Simple. How were any of them supposed to know that they would find something else entirely? He had hung back, lingering behind Hank as usual, as they entered the old warehouse. The search warrant had purportedly been very easy to acquire. This property was once the hub of a sizable node in a red ice distribution ring.

How were they supposed to know the people - ergo,  _ not _ deviants - inside would have EMP grenades, or that they would actually use them? 

Tossed by an unseen hand, one of oblong black devices had rolled down the stairs toward them. With a whining, building charge, it detonated in a veritable cloud of static.

Nick let out a whimper at the recent memory - or, at least, he thought he did. Did he? He could feel his lips moving, a tremor in his voice synthesizer, but was any sound coming out? His hands had automatically gone out at the loss of both feeds, as if he had lost his balance, but now he brought one up to his mouth as if to quiet himself. 

Where was Hank, or Connor? Was Connor okay, or just the same as him? How would he know if the perpetrators had left, or what was happening? 

Nick shuffled back hurriedly, uncaring if he was going to run into anyone or anything, one hand swinging back and forth wildly to try and clear a path for him. Was it? It felt like it was, but how could he tell? 

Already he could feel tears starting to form and fall from his eyes, chest rising and falling rapidly. He could almost imagine what he sounded like, but without any way to hear it, how could he tell what he was doing?  _ Where _ was he? 

His wireless networks were rendered a useless mess. Where was anyone, what if everyone left and he was all alone? What if Connor convinced Hank he was the useless thorn he said he was and they left him here, like this? 

As suddenly as the thoughts entered, they exited as his feet caught on something unexpectedly, sending him sprawling on a floor he couldn't see, with a thump he couldn't hear. Nick let out a cry, feeling his lips move again, but not knowing if he made any sound or not, both hands going up to his face. 

A hand grabbed his shoulder, followed instantly afterward by a staticky-pitched comm request. Whatever had wiped out his sight and hearing, knocked his external transmitters for a loop, it hadn’t affected his internal communications array.

That seemed backwards. Why wouldn’t his higher senses be shielded?

Another hand grabbed the back of his neck, trying to somehow hold him still.

_ Nick, Nick, c-calm down. It’s me. Quit screaming, stop - stop thrashing. You’re okay. _

Trying to follow the directions, he moved one hand over his mouth, stopping himself from screaming (or at least stifle the sound), the other going to the floor to try and grip at something, anything he could find. 

_ C-Connor, Connor, I can't see, I can't hear you, I'm scared, please - please, help me -  _

The hands on him tightened and shook gently. The system-to-system interface initiated by them tingled with the motion.  _ I’m right here next to you, calm down. Please, quiet, I don’t know where the suspects went, but they can’t be far. _

_ Where's… Hank?  _ Already a sense of dizziness was beginning to encroach on him, not being able to see where he was, but he could feel the subtle motions of his own body moving, and the presence of Connor standing beside him.  _ Where are we, in the warehouse, what's happening? Connor, please, help me, I can't - I can't do anything, I don't know what's going on.  _

_ Shhh, just - just, here, this way. _

Tugging in the direction Connor supposedly wanted him to move, he stumbled in trying to get up and follow. With a perspective that was virtually nothing, nonexistent, even such a menial task as taking a few steps forward felt like a gargantuan undertaking.

Unintentionally (or not), he veered headlong into the wall Connor (attempted?) to lead him toward.

_ Sorry, I - sorry. Just turn around, sit down. You can hide here. _

He clamored to do as Connor said, feeling blindly at the wall to turn around before sliding down it, wrapping his arms around his knees once he hit the floor.  _ Are you leaving? Please, don't leave, please, Connor, I can't - I won't know.  _

_ Just keep your comm open. I won’t close my end. _ A hand alighted on his shoulder again, patting exaggeratedly with reassurance.  _ I have to see if we’re safe, though. _

_ O-okay, okay, please, be safe,  _ Nick pleaded with him. It wasn't like he could realistically beg Connor into staying with him, not when there was still potential danger, potentially capable of doing worse than frying their senses with a well-tossed EMP grenade. They would both be sitting ducks if the suspects did so. And Hank, they needed to find Hank as soon as possible.  _ And quick, please, don't leave for long, please. _

_ I’ll try not to. _

The hands disappeared, even as the connection remained open. Light thuds resonating through the old floorboards, steadily growing softer, were the only indicator he was indeed being left alone.

And immediately, the anxiety that had been slightly held at bay came back around. Nick forced himself to remain quiet (probably - there was no real way for him to know if he was making sound or not it felt like, just swallowing harshly when the urge arrived) and as calm as he could, no fidgeting. He buried his head in his lap, suddenly aware of every little tiny motion he made, or was made around him incidentally.

With sight and sound stripped away, his remaining sensors were doing their best to fill the gaps.

Would it be too risky to ask Connor what he was doing, already? What if something bad was happening and he had no way of knowing it? What if Hank or Connor were hurt or worse, what if he was about to be hurt and he didn't even know it? 

His own feet caused the floor to tremor, making him let out some tiny frightened sound and flail backwards, before realizing just what it was. 

A hand capped itself over his bent knee.

_ Shh, it’s just me. Quiet. _

He reached over with one hand to feel for the one on his knee, tightening his grip around it once he found it.  _ Are we okay? What's happening? Did you - did you see Hank?  _ He felt tears start up again, overwhelmed and scared of having to rely on Connor for information this way. 

_ I… didn’t. But it’s gone silent out there, for the moment. The perpetrators may be sweeping the building, looking for him before they… deal with us. _

Now there was an amazing amount of reluctance in Connor’s words. Strange. He wasn’t one to sit around and wait for danger to come find them, or root out their human partner.

Why the newfound hesitation?

_ What's wrong? Are you - okay? Connor?  _ There was obviously something wrong with him as well if he was being as hesitant as he was. Could he see, still, and hear? What if they were both blind and deaf? 

That didn't make sense. Connor wouldn't have been able to know where he was or scope the place out if he couldn't see, but saying it's gone silent… 

_ Can you hear, Connor? Or - not? Please, don't leave again, not now.  _

Another hand settled over the one currently pinning the first hand over his kneecap.

_ I’m not going anywhere. But you can’t keep panicking like this. There’s an old armoire we’re hiding against, but… no, I can’t hear. I have to keep an eye on the door. I can’t do that if you’re not quiet. _

_ Okay, okay,  _ taking a deep breath, feeling the air enter his body, Nick forced back any sound he could feel coming up as best he could. What if he was still making noise, though? Neither him and Connor would be able to tell, and someone else would be able to hear him and come hurt them. 

He would just have to trust that Connor knew what he was doing, even without his hearing. At least he had his eyesight… maybe Hank would come find them soon, as well. Get them out of this situation. 

_ I'm quiet, I think. Gonna keep - still. Don't wanna stay like this.  _

_ You think I do? Hush. They only threw that grenade because they knew it had a chance of disabling us. They may not be looking for a fight. They’re looking to get away. _

Which made sense if their suspects were, in fact, deviants, not humans. Or was it a mixed bag they were dealing with? Just as there were anti-android protestors in this city, there were sympathizers. And not all of them were on the right side of the law. Those that weren’t tended to be secretive, employing hit-and-run maneuvers.

If they suspected their visitors were in any way deviant hunters - that explained the grenade.

From Jericho, with love.

_ Okay, I'm quiet.  _ Nick cautiously brought a hand up his mouth anyways, putting it over his mouth for a moment before pulling away. Nothing felt like he was making any noise - they should be okay, at least for now.  _ That would be good, I hope they just - just leave. We need Hank.  _

_ We need to be quiet, first. _

Easier said than done, as always.

——-

Being first through the proverbial door was, in some ways, highly overrated. They hadn’t pulled up to this warehouse expecting to receive big accolades for the recovery of piles of evidence lying around. It wasn’t that kind of warrant. Investigating any androids on the premises, allegedly displaying deviant behavior, was a secondary concern to matters related to narcotics and potential fenced goods.

Anderson hadn’t wanted to bring them. It would have been easier to case the location with a few patrolmen.

But Connor’s program recommended he insist.

So here they were: he was deaf, Nicholas was equal parts blind  _ and _ deaf, and Hank was nowhere within yelling distance.

Fantastic outcome thus far. All this calamity over some stolen ATM terminals.

Smarter criminals would have hacked the machines, not hired labor androids to cut them from their bases to lug out to some former hardware store in Grosse Pointe. The trail they left was so obvious, it may as well have been painted on the street with waypoints.

Two minutes, forty-seven seconds of painfully-tense silence reigned before anything of note happened. From around the edge of the armoire, Connor saw one, then two black-clad silhouettes rush by the door.

SWAT personnel?

No, he couldn’t have seen that right. His muddled optics were reporting false images. The suspects may be wearing black. But with his decreased visual fidelity and lack of audio, he was getting a distorted picture.

An alternative occurred to him three milliseconds later.

_ Nick, your uplink adapter - is it undamaged? _

_ …Yes, it's fine, I-I think so, at least. Why?  _

Connor frowned despite there being no one around to see it. ‘ _ Why’? Accessing it might restore your visual feed, to some extent. My optics are still eighty-two percent functional. Parsing that input to your system would only reduce the acuity of mine to seventy percent. _

Basically, they could share.

Head turned down, Nick lifted it at the suggestion, brows furrowing as he seemingly thought it over. Pupils blown wide, unable to focus, he blinked with obvious uncertainty.  _ Okay, if we - if it will work, and we can both see… can we do that? Maybe we can find Hank, then.  _

If.

If it worked. Yes, there was a chance it wouldn’t. Worst case scenario it wouldn’t make a difference. But taking a chance was preferable to crouching here, hoping for a timely rescue.

A binocular-shaped icon appeared across his HUD - oversized and faded - as he enabled the initializer.

_ My side is open. Just send the request, and we’ll find out. _

Without saying anything else, Nick sent the request, fists curling up on his knees with some amount of nervousness at the endeavor as a whole. 

Connor could admit to feeling uneasy, too.

A second icon, half transparent as the first, popped up, overlaid the original. A progress bar appeared dead center in his vision, rapidly scrawling sideways as the sync process ran to completion. Then it simply halted and vanished:

_ Warning _

_ Process corrupted _

_ Uplink/Sync incomplete _

He spotted the two blinking red/white words another millisecond before his vision sparked, fragmented itself like glass being hit with a hammer, and died. Like blinders had been slapped over his optics, everything went dark.

_...Shit. _

Under ordinary circumstances, swearing was nothing to be concerned about. Yes, Hank didn’t like it and no, they weren’t supposed to indulge in it, even when he was not present. But in this case, Connor wouldn’t do so if he didn’t have a reason.

In the next breath, he tried to sound like he still had a handle on the problem.

_ Visual integrity down to twenty-one percent. That backfired, Nick, I can’t see. _

A familiar hand found itself to his shoulder, gripping at it for a moment before simply laying itself there.  _ I can - I can see, Connor, sort of blurry, but I can. It's - can we go back? Cut the link, maybe?  _

Knowing the comm relay was still mostly-intact helped. The strange feeling of claustrophobia closing in from three sides didn’t seem as overwhelming for it.

He willed himself to blink, the minute pull of his eyelids assuring him they hadn’t failed altogether. He kept one hand curled around the armoire, the only point of geographical reference he had left.

_ You can see - via your inputs, or mine? The progress bar froze mid-sync. I can’t reenable it, or disable it. The permission requests aren’t bouncing back. _

The hand on his shoulder disappeared. Something reached over his arm, accidentally brushed his nose. He tried not to flinch.

_ Yours, I can see my hand if I put it in front of your eyes - weird, but I can see it, yes. Are we… stuck like this, for now?  _

Great. Another bright idea gone awry. He hadn’t so much shared his vision as gave it away. And instead of staying in relative control, he had gone and made it worse - turning himself into a humanoid Mars rover.

_ For now. Our components won’t fix themselves.  _ Cycling another calming breath, Connor blinked, hesitantly turning his open eyes right.

A simple test to start with, then.

_ What do you see there, a doorway? _

_ A… a doorway, yes. Right ahead of us.  _ Nick gripped at his shoulder for another moment, seemingly using it for leverage - to do what, stand himself up? Shuffle into a more upright position?  _ We're going to go find Hank?  _

Not in so many words.

Connor grabbed - rather clumsily - at the hand on his sleeve, trying to wedge his fingertips underneath.

_ Correction -  _ I  _ am going to go find him. You are going to stay here and… direct. _

He instantly loathed his own decision to try the uplink at all.

_ …What? You want me to - that's a bad idea.  _ Even protesting, Nick let go of his sleeve, drifting away to back toward himself, presumably, huddled in the corner behind the furniture.  _ You can't even hear him if he talks to you, neither of us can!  _

Making his point, Connor shuttered his eyes, despite the nervous yelp it drew.

_ And you can’t see without my eyes. We can only work with what we have, Nick, not keep fretting about what we don’t. Wherever the suspects are, we need to find Hank. What if he’s hurt and needs our help? _

_ Okay, okay, if - if you think it will work, we can do that, if it's the only way to find Hank. Please, don't close your eyes again, keep them open, please.  _

Now that he had his partner’s full attention, time to put it to good use.

_ Just tell me where to go, I’ll go. How many steps, which way to turn, imagine yourself shorter and it shouldn’t be too big a discrepancy. Remember I have no reason to distrust you. _

Connor reopened his eyes, shrugged the hand off his arm, and stood up.

_ Where to? _


End file.
